It’s not easy moving on from a trading job in an investment bank. Not everyone can work on the buy-side, let alone in a hedge fund. Not everyone can make a living working in fintech. Plenty of former traders disappear. Plenty of others become “consultants” or lie low, sometimes for years.
“I’ve seen many senior bankers go into consulting, and based on the specific areas of banking they knew really well, they find a fit with the areas where the firm was consulting in, so they become an industry expert within the consulting firm,” says Jeanne Branthover, managing partner at recruitment firm DHR International.
Many of last year’s disappearances were at KCG, which let numerous traders go after its acquisition by Virtu Financial. Greg Tusar, for example, spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs, latterly as a partner and the global head of electronic trading before joining KCG Holdings in 2013. He left KCG in July. In November, he became the CEO of Greywolf Consulting.
Other former KCG staff have also gone into consulting. Jon Ross, the former CTO is now working as an independent consultant. However, Charlie Susi, the former head of client electronic trading who was previously an MD and co-head of direct execution and e-trading at UBS, is lying low after leaving KCG in June 2017.
Another ex-trader who’s now consulting is Matt Senecal. Senecal was more quant than trader, having been global head of “Quant HQ” at UBS before leaving in 2016. He too has been consulting since the start of this year.
Of course, not everyone who exits a trading floor become a consultant. Todd Sandoz left Nomura in late 2016 after three years with the Japanese bank and a previous 17 years at Credit Suisse. He now appears to be setting up a family office.
And then there’s Chris Rogers, who spent eight years as the CTO of Instinet, Nomura’s brokerage and execution services subsidiary, before leaving about four years ago. He’s been traveling the world ever since and hasn’t looked back.